Global pharmaceutical company Merck (NYSE: MRK) will be reporting earnings this Thursday before market open. Here’s what investors should know.

Merck beat analysts’ revenue expectations last quarter, reporting revenues of $16.61 billion, up 5.1% year on year. It was a satisfactory quarter for the company, with a beat of analysts’ EPS estimates but a miss of analysts’ full-year EPS guidance estimates.

Is Merck a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it’s free for active Edge members.

This quarter, the market is expecting Merck’s revenue to be flat year on year, slowing from the 3.7% increase it recorded in the same quarter last year.

Analysts covering the company have generally reconfirmed their estimates over the last 30 days, suggesting they anticipate the business will stay the course heading into earnings. Merck rarely misses Wall Street’s revenue estimates.

With Merck being the first among its peers to report earnings this season, we don’t have anywhere else to look to get a hint at how this quarter will unfold for pharmaceuticals stocks. However, there has been positive investor sentiment in the segment, with share prices up 3.6% on average over the last month. Merck is down 4.5% during the same time .

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